A request to all EN World gamers

[Grodd JoJoJo]

As you can see from my screenname, I go by Grodd JoJoJo; my name in "normal" life is Scott D. Carter.

I am a graduate English student in Louisiana, and I've been collecting player recollections to begin my dissertation - which is about the interrelation of RPGs, literature, theatre, and the practice of participatory storytelling. Wow, that's a lot - I got started on this because I began as a player in 1979, just as AD&D was first coming out.

I'm writing this because I'm seeking out player recollections, impressions of various RPGs, rules systems, and styles of play, and the effects that RPGs have had on people as storytellers (both DMs and players). I'm starting my "interview" collection here.

Please feel free to give any comments, stories, etc. and personal names are unnecessary (anyone who checks my sources can come here).

Thanks for helping, and I hope to talk to a lot of you soon!

 

[Bloodsparrow]

I'm writing this because I'm seeking out player recollections, impressions of various RPGs, rules systems, and styles of play, and the effects that RPGs have had on people as storytellers (both DMs and players). I'm starting my "interview" collection here.

I'd love to help you out JoJoJo, but I'm not sure what it is you want...
Could you be more spesific, or give an example?

 

[Agemegos]

What sort of personal accounts are you hoping for? Accounts of playing RPGs as a story-telling game? Like this?:

Back in about 1987 I was playing in a Pulp-adventure genre campaign set in the USA in the 1920s, and as a result of a setup that was too complicated to remember, let alone explain, the PCs ended up in a house with the lights out, guarding a young woman who was being sought by fiendish Tong members. There was a noise from the ground floor, so my character (Biff Davis, granite-jawed fist-swinging red-blooded hero) took his .45 and went to make sure the young woman was safe, while the other PC (Lord Harrington, eccentric British antiquarian and explorer) went downstairs with his .455 Webley revolver to investigate.

Harrington found an open window in the kitchen, was jumped by a couple of fiendish Tongka, got into a scuffle, and fired three shots, incapacitating both of his atackers. Biff heard the shots.

Now, Harrington's encounter with the Tong had already been played out, and I knew that Harrington had emerged unscathed and victorious. But Biff had no idea of that. Nevertheless, the sensible thing to do would be to stay with the woman or to take her along: it was after all she who the Tongka were seeking. To have Biff stay upstairs would have been a cynical abuse of out-of-charcter knowledge: Harrington wasn't in trouble, but for all Biff knew he might have been. So I was just about to have Biff sneak down the stairs with a .45 in one hand and the romantic interest-cum-McGuffin's hand inthe other when I had an epiphany. By making a mistake at this point I would be observing genre convention and also giving the GM a choice of how to have the adventure continue. So Biff said to the girl "Wait here!" and hurried off to check on Harrington. When they got back, she had been kidnapped.

Instead of playing out a rather dull siege in which we gunned down and beat up lots of fiendish Tongka, we got a dialogue with a major villain, a chase, a detective montage, and a rescue, which were (a) more varied and interesting, and (b) more in keeping with the genre. That epiphany led to a long-term change in my playing style, as I realised that it isn't necessarily the most fun to have a character who is highly competent, can count on succeeding in all his or her endeavours, and who always does the cleverest thing I can think of. Sometimes it is more fun to play a character with weaknesses and limitations, and who has to cope with the fact that his first attempts commonly fail. If, that is, you have the support of a GM who is playing the same game, and of mutually-agreed genre conventions.

 

[Agemegos]

By the way, "A request to all EN World gamers" is a really unhelpful title to give a thread. It gives the reader browsing the forums no hint of what material it might contain, and it doesn't really help the jaded habitué to remember which of the hundreds of request-for-help thread he or she has seen this is. Next time, try something more (a) descriptive and (b) distinctive.

 

[CarlZog]

This sounds like it could be fascinating research. I too would love to hear more about your thesis.

I started playing about the same time you did. At first it was all the typical hack-n-slash, but it was when I got into college that I started thinking more about the game as a combination of interactive storytelling and improv theatre. Mind you, I never had any acting or theatre background, training or interest.

Playing with a group of friends that had very little RPG experience, I began to focus on really bringing NPCs to life with facial expressions and accents. I quickly discovered that doing so made a big difference in how the players interacted with the NPCs. They took things more seriously and began to interract with the NPCs in character. It was great to watch.

As they were all pretty new to the game, I also started the campaign giving each of them detailed character backgrounds that were tied to the plotlines I expected to come up in the campaign. I wanted them to understand what motivated their characters, and I hoped they would run with it. They did.

The other element was ensuring that each player had exclusive knowledge about his character (call it "personal secrets") that he could choose to share or not to share with the others.

Without going into extensive story details, the campaign's primary evil foe cornered the party in an alley and each character thought it was only him personally that the bad guy was after. And each for a different reason! But they were all terrified! I mean every player was legitimately scared, as if the threat to his character constituted a real-life threat to the player himself! You could see it on their faces: This was real.

Looking around the table, I was stunned that I had been able to evoke this powerful, genuine, raw emotional response. It was an amazing feeling for me, and the players talked about that encounter for many years after.

That's when I first realized that that the unfolding play of the game was, in itself, an kind of narrative artform in which we were the creators AND the audience. I don't know of any other form or art or entertainment that can lay that claim in quite the same way.

zog

 

[CarlZog]

Now, Harrington's encounter with the Tong had already been played out, and I knew that Harrington had emerged unscathed and victorious. But Biff had no idea of that. .... To have Biff stay upstairs would have been a cynical abuse of out-of-charcter knowledge: Harrington wasn't in trouble, but for all Biff knew he might have been.

So you (Biff's player) knew Harrington was OK, because the DM had played out Harrington's encounter in front of you?

As a DM I would have taken Harrington's player aside for the encounter, leaving you with the same knowledge as Biff, and avoiding your having to make the out of character decision you did. Though my style would have probably allowed you to have a more honest reaction, your DM's style gave you an opportunity to explore the character and develop a whole new aspect to your own play....

These are the reasons I love RPGs! Truly endless possibilities.

zog

 

[Agemegos]

So you (Biff's player) knew Harrington was OK, because the DM had played out Harrington's encounter in front of you?

Yes.

As a DM I would have taken Harrington's player aside for the encounter, leaving you with the same knowledge as Biff, and avoiding your having to make the out of character decision you did. Though my style would have probably allowed you to have a more honest reaction, your DM's style gave you an opportunity to explore the character and develop a whole new aspect to your own play.

Our approach also allowed me to enjoy the encounter between Harrington and the Tongka in the stance of an audience. Anthony's stiff-upper-lip witticisms would have been lost (or at least partly lost) if I had been expelled from the room.

RPGs are a game in which players amuse one another: but you can't amuse someone who is unaware of what you do.

This is possible because we (as a group) tend to work mostly from the stance of an author or of an audience, sometimes of an actor, less often from that of a charcter. If you play mostly from the stance of a character you might find the distraction of having to firewall player knowlege from character knowledge loses you more enjoyment than missing out on the play when you character isn't there would do. But personally, I already have to firewall off lots of knowledge, such as the fact that I exist and the character does not. I don't find that putting knowledge of what other player's characters have seen and done while I was a disembodied audience in the correct category makes me significantly uncomfortable.

IMHO. YMMV. YDWYDWP. IYTESPRPGTWYDYCJFO.

 

[Grodd JoJoJo]

Actually, Agemegos, this is a useful account; you've brought up one of the features of RPGs that isn't covered by "improv" or dramatic workshops - metagaming, the practice of speaking out of character about info that either the player has and the character doesn't or details that the player needs to know which aren't directly related to the narrative.

Would you like me to clarify the point? I doubt it's necessary, since all of us understand the need for it. I suppose it's a little like the cliche - "What's my motivation?"

You asked for clarification on the dissertation, so here goes (please remember that the focus of research can change , still the final product is going to represent what comes out as we go):

What I'm basically looking for is your personal narratives, particularly those that clarify points of gaming that are very different from what we understand fiction or drama to be. That's nowhere near being esoteric - IMHO, we all know these features. Another thing that is of major interest to me is the intricate link between modern fiction and drama (film, mostly) and RPGs - another thing we all recognize.

There are excellent studies of gaming out there, but they highlight the differences between finite and infinite games and the social aspects of RPGs - not the literary or dramatic aspects. I'm an English BA, an almost Theatre MA, and now I'm working at an English PhD, in case anyone wants my background. I don't think it's relevant; in many ways, despite 25 years of experience, I feel like I'm still a novice - something new and exciting always pops up.

Thanks for asking, Agemegos - and I appreciate the posting from all of you. I'm already having more fun than with anything I've written before (my last paper was a study of Athenian law - ack).

Best,
GJJJ

 

[Varianor Abroad]

RPGs had the effect of boosting my interest in fiction, history and theatre. I already enjoyed SF and fantasy, but when I got into role playing games, I found myself interest even more in sources of inspiration.

Fiction, TV, movies, history, myths and other sources are just that. Sources. I draw inspiration from something that strikes me as interesting or cool. From that I spin out a plot and story ideas. Once it gets to the players, they make that into their own story. At that point, I'm just along to referee and contribute because the best RPG stories are ones that never could be predicted at all.

To give one example, I created a fantasy campaign called Terra Incognita, where Prince John Lackland was a hero. He led a fleet of ships across the ocean to a land of fey and cold iron, where Vikings still existed in the far North, and French Crusaders founded a kingdcom to the South. And so on. This was a synthesis of many ideas from fiction. From that point however, the stories were purely new and original.

 

[Three_Haligonians]

One of the more intricate aspects to playing is how we reffer to ourselves while gaming. For instance, in the theatre, an actor asumes a character and then proceeds to speak about him/herself in the first person, this occures in scripted work as well as improv. If the actor has any actions to perform, the actor either uses props to perform the task or mimes it out.

When gaming, one of the things I find most facinating is how we refer to our characters. We speak our dialouge just as an actor would, but when we perform an action we would say something like "I unsheath my sword and charge". Sometimes, for clarification, we go so far as to say "I say: "give me the potion or else."

The DM, on the other hand, has to work as both narrator and actor. He/she usually must talk from the point of view of the NPC's, but frequently does this in the third person: "she looks at you for a moment before responding: "I do not know." However, the DM must also describe the surroundings to the PC's so he/she also must adopt second person (?...I could be wrong on the term) point of view: "you enter the temple and are immediatly dazzled by the tall, marble pillars".

When I was playing and DMing a lot, I found, at least once a session, I would get the terminology all screwed up and would end up saying something like "she...no I open the door".

Hope that helps,

(t from three haligonians)

PS: When your finished your thesis, you do realize your going to have to post it here, right!!